What is Warren Spector’s secret Disney project?

Epic Mickey. That’s what the media is calling Warren Spector’s super secret project for Disney. Back in 2007 Warren Spector’s Junction Point studio was bought by Disney and the man behind Dues Ex has been busy working on something ever since. But let’s start at the beginning.

At the end of 2008 Gamasutra talked about a secret project they’d seen concept art for that indicated a title codenamed “Epic Mickey.” The concept art featured “pencil sketches of cities assembled from junk” and “a surreal seashore invasion scene, in which machines wearing the faces of the Seven Dwarfs deposit old-fashioned renditions of Disney characters onto the beach with mechanical hands.”

An even earlier report from 1Up offered this small tidbit of information on the project:

Ever since Disney bought his studio, thus crushing our dreams for Ninja Gold, we’ve wanted to know just what the heck ace developer Warren Spector is working on. Hints were dropped on GFW Radio, but Quartermann claims to have the skinny. Word is that Spector’s new Disney project will be a platformer looking to compete with a certain pesky plumber. And who’s big enough to take on Nintendo’s star? Only the mouse himself!

And so, here we are today, with some new information: new artwork uncovered by Neogaf, and details unearthed by Superannuation point to Epic Mickey featuring familiar Disney characters and locations with a steampunk setting.

The Neogaf art shows a robotic scorpion with a bear head, a spider-like robot with mouse ears, a steam punk style cityscape, a castle, a giant jug of paint thinner with Mickey Mouse on the label on a beach and a number of other conceptual sketches. The artwork was found on the web site of artist Gary Glover, who worked for Junction Point as a concept artist from 2007 - 2008.

Further proof comes from Superannuation who uncovered a mention of “Epic Mickey” in the resume of current Junction Point Studios concept artist Tony Puhlham - including the fact that the game is being developed for the Wii.

Of course “Epic Mickey” is probably a codename for something else, but at least we now have a general sense of what it is Warren Spector has been working on for almost two years.

More details when we have them.